The Best Kind Of Sky
by Kian
Summary: Post-series one shot. Implied AkiHika and MitAka. Hikaru muses on cheesy romance novel covers, symbolism, and where love falls in between.


Title: The Best Kind Of Sky  
  
Author: Kian  
  
Fandom: Hikaru no Go  
  
Type: shounen-ai/mentioned het  
  
Pairing: AkiHika & mention of MitAka  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: Hikaru muses on romance novel covers, symbolism, and where love falls in between.  
  
Disclaimer: The anime series Hikaru no Go and its characters are copyright to the appropriate creators and companies. The individual under the pen name of "Kian" is receiving no profit from the distribution of this story, nor does said author have any intention to receive compensation beyond hopefully some verbal praise.  
  
Notes: This story was my first time posting for a challenge. The challenge can be found on the LJ community "tempsmort" as "moonstruck," which was to write a story paying using the moon as a theme, so hopefully I haven't bungled it too badly. Fic was written in 83 minutes out of a 90 minute maximum, give or take a couple of minutes since I had to keep leaving and coming back to it.  
  
The Best Kind of Sky  
  
He smiled to himself when Akari pulled a small romantic novel from her bag and thumbed her way back to a heavily dog-eared page, hunkering down to read with a squint and a sigh. The train was filled to near bursting like every morning and the two had been separated coming on to be able to find a place to stand or sit. Akari had ended up in a seat about five feet from where Hikaru stood gripping on the hand loops. It wasn't a terribly uncommon occurance during the morning rush into town to lose track of each other completely and only meet up again the next morning when they once again set out together for the train station.  
  
Hikaru didn't attend high school anymore, concentrating solely on his Go career, but as Akari's high school and the Go institute were off the same line, Hikaru still walked out of his door every morning to find Akari waiting not so patiently for him so they could walk together to the station. She would tease him every morning that he would never learn to get up unless he had a game with Touya and he would chide her that if she wanted someone to get up for her, she should go bug Mitani. At that point, she would blush furiously and pummel him mercilessly with her bookbag until he laughingly apologized. It was good to have those walks with Akari, he had decided several months before. Now he didn't need to go out of his way to walk past the imported motorcycle dealership on his way to an important match, he just needed to embarass his old friend about her blossoming relationship with one disgruntled redhead to loosen up.  
  
There wasn't much to see out the windows in front of him except for the blurry outlines of the buildings that stood solidly alongside the busy track and its swiftly lumbering trains. He studied the people around him, students with their smartly (and the occasional not-so-smartly) pressed uniforms and working men with their suit jackets slung carefully over their arms, all trying to ignore the crowded train's natural build up of heat and focus on the little important things they had to look forward to in the coming day: meetings, gossip, whatever.  
  
Eventually he settled his gaze on Akari and her paperback volume of some romantic work of historical fiction, most likely filled with stoic, steroid- enhanced men just waiting to be brought to their knees by some pseudo- socially defiant and ultimately helpless young woman in a whirlwind of fanciful intrigue and dopey monologue. He chuckled to himself again, wondering if Mitani had ever noticed the literature his girlfriend indulged in. While he was a great guy, Mitani was certainly no white knight waiting to swoop in and rescue his princess. But, knowing Akari, she probably didn't expect or even really want him to be one. Akari was a can-do kind of girl, she'd sooner save herself than wait around for some guy to come along. It was an amusing thought nonetheless; Mitani on horseback trying to save Akari from some jealous witch or sadistic, lustful villain.  
  
Speaking of fantastical scenes, Hikaru snorted loudly when Akari finally fidgeted and forgot to leave her hand plastered over the cover of the book. The thing was nothing if not loud. Emblazoned across the cover in large, hot pink lettering was the title, "Lover's Moon," complimented by an illustration that could frighten young children and animals.  
  
The heroine was grappling with her lover in a strange, physically improbable embrace on a cliff overlooking a sparkling pond that was reflecting a full moon in the early hours of evening. It seemed the artist had never done a comprehensive study of human form, or even her own hands, because the thumb on the man's visible hand was on the wrong side of his palm and he had rippling muscles that swallowed his elbows and whatever other bone structure was meant to be implied. The heroine's hips were too narrow for her chest size, which probably the chief reason she was falling so hard into Muscle Man of the Golden Locks.  
  
It was the painted moonlight, however, that seized the majority of Hikaru's attention. The odds of a full moon coming up at exactly the right time in the evening for the lover's meeting and appearing so ridiculously large in their background irked him. He had had a small fascination with space when he was younger and had done some stargazing once upon a time, so he knew that the moon rose an hour later everyday and spent the entire month moving back and forth along the horizon on a specific orbit path around the earth. He wondered why artists had to capture the moon in only one way when they painted, when it offered so much movement and so much variety.  
  
'Kind of like a Go stone,' he thought idly, remembering one old junior high tournament game a few years before where he had discovered that he had the power to construct and evolve an entire universe on the Go board. He had painted sleepy planets, vibrant stars, and entire galaxies across that board, and he had spent the years since learning how to keep his little universes from crumbling under the influence over his opponents. But in the game, he could only ever paint a night sky. He was simply the solitary sun in a sea of black and white.  
  
Perhaps that was the answer. People found a full moon romantic because it seemed as if everything was drawn to it and revolved around it, like the face of a lover.  
  
'But in the end, it's just one lonely rock sitting by itself up in a black sky. Nothing very romantic about that.'  
  
Akari's stop came up and she smiled and winked at him as she stepped out the train doors onto the platform, moving down the stairs to the street, hastily stuffing the novel back into her bag and checking her watch. Hikaru smiled at her retreating back, knowing that while she hadn't seen him return her silent goodbye, that she would expect it as part of her normal morning routine. Akari loved simple consistancy, even if it was only implied.  
  
Maybe that was why a romantic moon was always full. A moon that was not full implied change, but people wanted romance to be permanent and simple. The permanence didn't seem to be the problem, it was the stasis that bothered Hikaru as he watched Akari's form disappear.  
  
'Change can be a good thing,' he mused, 'It can make you stronger and it can show you things you haven't thought of before.'  
  
Go was like that. To get better, you had to play frequently. You had to experience triumph and defeat. You had to observe the change in yourself as well as the changes in others. You had to grow. It was a little scary, he willingly admitted, but growing up is always a little lonesome and frightening. 'Sometimes you are left by yourself in the dark, and you have to decide whether you'll stay in the dark or chase a horizon,' he nodded to himself. 'Izumi showed me that.'  
  
The train rumbled back into motion and a few more stops brought Hikaru out onto the streets, tracing his way to the Go Institute which lay about a half mile beyond the station. He walked on the outsides of the sidewalks to catch little bursts of sunlight, since the sun had not risen fully above the buildings yet, but was beginning to blossom in the lines of the streets. He relished the soft warmth the light offered instead of the compact, stifling heat of the train car. The day promised bright and clear blue skies, the soft, gentle color the blackness of space brightened to under the sun's vibrant rays.  
  
He didn't have a game today, there was just a press conference for all the young pros, so he leisurely walked the bustling sidewalks, enjoying the day he had started. As he rounded the last corner and the Institute's deceptively plain walls came into view, a step matched his own and a firm, cool hand wound its way around his lax one.  
  
"Good morning, Touya," he smiled, looking over at his newest traveling companion.  
  
"Shindou," came the deceptively cool response, though Hikaru could see the other boy was glad to see him, if Akira's sudden presence and comfortable touch hadn't made that clear enough.  
  
"I was starting to think you were going to skip the interview," Touya continued, "It wouldn't be the first time."  
  
A sheepish grin brightened his round cheeks as an eyebrow raised ever so slightly on Akira's pale face.  
  
"But I did come," Hikaru mock-whined, tilting his head just so, letting his yellow bangs fall out towards Akira in a plead for recognition and forgiveness, though he already knew Akira was not angry at all.  
  
"With two minutes to spare, but you did come," Touya replied, the corners of his eyes smiling softly as he lightly returned a tease to the beaming young man, who squeezed his hand playfully in response.  
  
They released hands as they walked up the steps to the Institute, as Hikaru took the steps two at a time at a jog and Akira preferred to slowly ascend at a walk. Hikaru held the door open for Akira as he caught up and just before he followed the pale boy inside, he glanced up at the bright sky once more. Nestled up in the warm morning was the glinting pearl of the moon, luring the sun up into the sky to dance alongside it in the endless blue.  
  
'That's what love's really like,' Hikaru thought, as he smiled to himself and jogged to meet Akira by the elevators. 'A sun and a moon on the same day, pulling and pushing each other along.'  
  
Hikaru caught up with his rival and lover and they headed for the press room. They were a sun and a moon on the same day, ready to create universes together.  
  



End file.
